This application concerns a mounting arrangement allowing one or more wheels to be added to a motor vehicle axle for achieving improved traction and support for the vehicle weight when being driven on unpaved surfaces.
It has long been realized that adding one or more auxiliary wheels to at least two vehicle axles will greatly improve mobility particularly when driving off road.
Various adapters and extensions have been devised to add such auxiliary wheels, but none of these have provided a practical and conveniently installed mounting of such wheels.
Any mounting must provide adequate support for the auxiliary wheel and should be convenient to install in the field when extra traction and support is needed.
Some prior mounting arrangements are complex and require special wheel rims, which add substantially to the expense of adding auxiliary wheels.
In other mountings, the mounted wheels are spaced too close together allowing mud to become packed into the gap between the wheels, which must be removed periodically.
Also, mountings for auxiliary wheels must not have any gaps or clearances between the moving components because the presence of clearances may lead to loosening of the components over time. At the same time, some clearances are necessary in order to be able to assemble the components and connect them to an existing axle.
The components themselves must also be sufficiently sturdy to adequately support the auxiliary wheels, but also should not be too heavy such as to make the vehicle too heavy and thus affect the rate of fuel consumption of the vehicle.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a mounting arrangement for adding auxiliary wheels to trucks or other motor vehicles, which also provides adequate support for any auxiliary wheels.
It is an additional object to provide such mounting arrangement which allows the use of standard wheel rims and is easy and quick to install when needed.
It is a further object to provide such mounting arrangement for adding auxiliary wheels which eliminates any clearances which could cause looseness over time while still allowing assembly of the wheel to the mounting components.